


Broken, But Not Unwhole

by nightlife



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, I Love You, M/M, One-Sided Love, Please Forgive me, Sora and Riku are oblivious, Sorry Kairi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21756637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightlife/pseuds/nightlife
Summary: An outsider, looking in.
Relationships: Kairi & Riku & Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi & Riku (Kingdom Hearts), Kairi/Sora (Kingdom Hearts), One-Sided - Relationship, Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36





	Broken, But Not Unwhole

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Give Me Back My Innocence 'Cause I Wish To Dream Again](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21725689) by [PoltergeistPanda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoltergeistPanda/pseuds/PoltergeistPanda). 



They were perfect together, really, it was an objective fact.

It was something Kairi couldn’t possibly deny.

They’re standing there, knee-deep in the water, as the waves lap gently at their skin. They’re a flawless pair, under the blanket of stars overhead.

She’s an outsider, standing on the edge of the bracken leading to the beach. She cradles a hand to her chest because that’s where it  _ stings _ . Watching them, their perfection together - with all its cracks and bruises - it stung.

Sora makes a funny face. He scrunches up his nose and draws his eyebrows together in mock scrutiny. He’s unsteady on his legs, the waves seeming to almost wash away his feeble frame. Especially next to Riku, who stood tall and broad. Sora stumbles as the water grows suddenly turbulent, grabbing for Riku’s hands just as Riku reaches for his. Riku’s laugh sparkles like the sky.

That’s when Kairi realises Riku was made for the moonlight. His pale features glow softly underneath it, silver hair shining. It’s shorter than when she last saw it, so she briefly wonders how much a part of their lives she’s actually been. How many memories in their minds she appears in, and how many they’ve shared exclusively, without her.

(For a moment, she recalls a time after Sora’s long sleep. The boy - back then, so young - crumbling to his knees, clinging to the sleeves of Riku in someone else’s body, sobbing uncontrollably.

_ ‘It’s Riku… Riku’s here…!’ _

It echoes at the back of her mind, but she turns it away.

_...Did he ever call for me like that? _ )

He was made for the hidden moments in-between. Like the moon, he shone, ethereal, in the dark.

She can really only say that Riku is beautiful at that moment, between  _ them _ .

Riku is radiant and bright, and it shows in the turquoise of normally enigmatic eyes. But, tonight, they’re softer than she’s ever seen them and gazing at Sora with the awe of a lost man who finally found his light - his sun.

He’s so terribly, wholeheartedly in love.

That’s right… if Riku is the moon, then Sora must be the sun.

Sora was made for the sunlight. Made to run beneath it, sprinting and laughing and kicking up the sand, as it whirls around him, in tune with his stride. He was made to brave the deepest darks, the inmost recesses of human nature, and come out battered and bruised, but nonetheless beaming. Made to stand in the first rays after a storm, the sea crashing around his knees, to smile, golden and endlessly stunning, bathing in the memories of loved ones. To guide those who were lost in the dark, back to his side in the light.

He feels like salvation.

He  _ is _ salvation.

Kairi smiles sullenly to herself. Genuine, yet it felt wrong on her face.

Here, the moon dwarfs its sun into something fragile. Sora is shorter than Riku, skin darker, but still glowing faintly. Kairi can see in their movements a heavy burden, each their own to bear, personal experiences etched so deep into their hearts that they left intangible scars.

She can see it in the way Riku’s hands hold Sora’s as if they might snap under just a brush of his fingers, in the way Sora grasps Riku’s arms tightly as if he might suddenly disappear, in the way they lean on each other, for everything past and everything to come.

They’re a little like fractured glass - broken, but not unwhole. Pieces still slotting together, despite the agonising hardships it’s obviously been through.

_ Together,  _ Sora and Riku look delicate, bearing their whole selves, but so lost in each other’s eyes that everything was worth it, because there they were,  _ together _ .

Dangerous, but all the same, so blindingly brilliant.

It stabs at her heart, stings her eyes. Kairi swallows it down because even she knows that’s how it’s meant to be - that  _ they’re  _ meant to be. There are holes in Sora’s soul that only Riku can fill, holes that Kairi stares hopelessly into because she can’t be there, where Riku always is and always has been.

Riku is Sora’s confidence; his independence, and Sora is Riku’s stability; his motivation.

This time, Sora actually trips and falls, and the ocean splashes up around him. Riku’s voice fills the air, and Sora’s joins it. Sora moves at lightning speed, tugging Riku down with him. Their laughter, so boyish and untamed and comfortable, form the words so they don’t have to, and it declares:

_ You are my dearly beloved. _

It rings loud in her ears, clearer than the waters of their home.

It hurts a little - a lot.

So Kairi tears her eyes away from the ocean.

And she runs.

She screams at nothing, to nobody, because there isn’t anyone to listen, and it’s what Sora taught her to do. He had smiled that big, wide Sora smile of his, and said,  _ ‘I like to shout when I’m angry. But not at anyone. That’s mean.’ _ and she had laughed at him, because it sounded silly and immature at the time, but now, Kairi screams.

The sound of her own voice clears away the ones in her head.

She’d been an outsider looking in.

During their moments on the island, sparring, together, she sat on the sidelines and watched.

When Riku had drowned in darkness, Sora had chased him, and she’d been forced to stand by and see through blurry eyes.

When Sora fell asleep, for so long, and Riku had been the one to chase. To chase Sora’s memories and his shadows. Kairi hadn’t even been there.

When Riku wore a different face but nonetheless went to put down the lingering darkness, Sora had followed without hesitation. Kairi hadn’t gone.

And suddenly, she’s okay with being an outsider, looking in.

She loves them - she loves her boys, and yes, it stings, it hurts, and it makes her want to kick and cry, but she loves them. With all her heart. She loves them, with all their cracks and bruises, and the desire to bandage their scars is like a salve for her own fresh wound.

Their love was never hers to witness, not really, but she’d damn well make sure that those oblivious dorks, (the sun and the moon: always passing each other by) have the most shocking - but all the same, heart-warming, heart-wrenching - realisation.

No - Kairi would not be the clouds that obscured them, she’d be the stars that made them glow even brighter in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> there's a lot you can read into, if you know enough  
> sorry.  
> i do love kairi, promise.
> 
> i do hope i didnt intrude too much but i really wanted to add more to it.


End file.
